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Friday, June 28, 2013

Evening at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge

It's been a couple of weeks since I visited Great Meadows. While I was away they had flooding and the cross dike trail basically became part of the impoundments. You could still see the effects of the flooding tonight. Both sides of the trail were sort of beaten down and soggy looking.

Also, since I last visited the Lotus has taken over a lot of the open water. I couldn't find any trace of the Yellow Warbler nest, so I'm guessing she didn't successfully raise young at that location, but I hope I'm wrong. There were still some yellow warblers in that area, but no juveniles were apparent to me.

I did see a Gray Catbird feeding a juvenile and an Eastern Kingbird feeding a juvenile, both were fledged. The Catbird was hidden in the leaves of a bush but the Kingbird was at the tip top of a tree squawking and flapping and drawing all kinds of attention to itself.

Canada geese families were blocking several parts of the trail. It's funny (not) how the geese hiss at you when you walk by. It really makes you think twice about it. I've seen the videos on YouTube of geese attacking people who are walking by...My theory is that as long as I keep moving, they will leave me alone. So far, so good. There's aren't too many babies left in the "cute" stage.

Besides these sightings, I saw: Cedar Waxwing, Song Sparrow, a Great Blue Heron catching a fish, a muskrat crossing the trail and not looking half as cute as when its ugly rat tail (ick) is submerged in the water, and 3 bunnies, two of which were at the base of the observation tower. Cute!